Epilogue

Well, I suppose I should start out by telling the story of how I got home. The last you heard, the three of us girls were flying on a delayed flight to Paris, 24 hours later than the original, at 1am. Well, no. After an entire day of being incredibly sick with my annual cold, carrying around a roll of toilet paper and stuffing snotty balls into my sweatshirt pocket, sitting like a hobo in the lobby of the Raphia Hotel, and trying to change my homecoming plans with people back home… we arrive at the airport late at night. Allie gets her boarding pass and says “see you on the other side of security!” and that is the last time I saw her. To make a long story short the night ended up consisting of Maddie and I crying and shouting in several different languages, many panicked international phone calls on a stranger’s phone, only to be found sitting on the floor of an empty airport lobby as the lights shut off listening to the sound of our plane taking off outside. Delta had apparently not notified Air France that they had changed our tickets. Therefore, there was no record of Maddie or myself to be on that flight. So… we went back to good old Raphia at approximately 3:30am looking incredibly defeated and they happily took us in another night for about $6 USD. 

The next morning I felt worse than ever with my head cold but the sun was shining and it was a new day. I knew that my mother had made some calls and gotten me on SOME flight home, but I was completely willing to take my time finding out when that was since I was dead sick running on 4 hours of sleep. So I start out by dragging my feet down to the lobby restaurant, order a tea, turn on my computer…. And my flight is in 4 hours!! Did I mention that it’s about an hour drive to the airport? …and that international flights are usually pretty booked so there is a long wait in line… Basically, I had to be packed up in a taxi at that second and I was still in my pajamas sitting in a restaurant.  All I remember is running upstairs and rambling to Maddie as I shove my things in my suitcase, throwing some ariary at the man in the little convenience store for some yogurt, cookies, and a couple oranges, and diving into the taxi Maddie so kindly hailed down for me.  Then I luckily was able to fly from Tana to South Africa to Atlanta to HOME, with no more than an hour at each transfer. It was the most surreal experience of my life. 

But the point is I am home now. I have been home for several months, enjoying the summer in Rhode Island and school is about to start. I was really surprised at how quickly I was able to jump back into life in the US. My dad even had me drive my own jeep home from the airport when I hadn’t been behind the wheel in four months. I did notice that I found large corporate stores like Walmart or the grocery store to be huge, bright, and freezing. I also found myself getting easily annoyed at my friends’ petty complaints and arguments. My parents were laughing at me the whole first day home at my enthusiasm about tissue boxes and the fact that I actually drank water from the kitchen sink. But I have to say that after only a week or so I was back to my old self. Wearing make-up regularly and purchasing an iPhone for myself. 

I would not say this experience didn’t change me, though. It certainly did. Not only do I know a lot more about camping, how a Non-governmental Organization works, what the main environmental concerns in a poor country are, and how to say many things in a brand new language that no one else knows… but I am more appreciative of everything, I have a much greater passion for a career in economic development and environmental management, and I feel like I am even more tolerant of things I used to be very picky about. Overall I am glad I had this experience. But if you asked me to do it again, I would probably change a few things. I have had this recurring dream that I end up back there, with or without people I know, and trying to find a way home because I just cannot deal with spending another four months there right now! This probably stems from the fact that it was such an ordeal for me to actually come home, and not the fact that I had a hard time there. But still… not for a while, please. 

Also, I miss my SIT friends so much. It’s strange that you can be closer to someone in a country halfway across the world than you are in the same country in which you both live. I hate that I never know when I will get to see Allie in Texas, or Anne in North Carolina, or even all my friends that live in Massachusetts or Connecticut!  But we will hopefully reunite one day. At least we are lucky enough to have social networking technology! I hope they are all just as excited about starting regular school again! Classes are indoors and not on a matt in the grass. When a class starts at 9:00, that means it actually starts at 9:00 and not just when we all happen to arrive… and there will be no women making us huge vats of delicious food to fight over and have three heaping plates full at lunch time. But I think we will survive.

Veloma, Madagasikara! Je vous manqué… un peu. 

Quinzième Semaine

So I have not fallen off the face of the earth. After we finished up our final projects and tests, we’ve been traveling a lot again to finish up the semester! Unfortunately I was hit with the sick one last time before leaving Fort Dauphin which stopped me from going out with a bang, but everything still went very well in terms of finishing up academic stuff. 

We left Fort Dauphin by plane into Tana and crashed at our beloved Raphia hotel for a few short hours before loading onto the Tata bus again at 5am the next day. We spent two whole days on that Tata traveling up north, stopping in Port Berge and some other place that I don’t remember on the way to rest. As we made our way up the island and down the plateau, the weather got a lot hotter and so did the food. We have eaten very well in the North since the food tastes so much better!! The growing conditions for things from vegetables to unique spices are much better up there than anywhere else on the island. Part of these successful crops is Khat, which is a mild drug plant. It's a very mild upper, like less powerful than caffeine, that people chew to help concentration, stay awake, or suppress appetite. So, ofcourse, when we got to the north, we all had to try it. Basically, it was the grossest thing ever. You chew on the leaves which are bitter and dry out your mouth and make you drool at the same time while turning your mouth green! You put in a whole branch full and keep it in there for 3-5 hours!! It was disgusting and needless to say, it did nothing. I actually fell asleep while chewing it which is the complete opposite effect you'd expect. I would have had the same experience chewing on any other random plant. But it did make for some really fun times while we were laughing at eachother's commiseration.

One of the stops we made on our way up was to the tsingy!! There we saw the fattest gecko ever…  don’t know what they’re eating but it’s working. The tsingy was one of the main sites I had been looking forward to this entire trip, right after lemurs and giraffe weevils. So it was really exciting to go and walk across them and learn about them. “Tsingy” comes from the Malagasy word “mitsingy” which means to walk on tiptoes! They are limestone that was once under the ocean and over millions of years weathered down to a spiky gray field of rock. Pretty awesome. 

Amber Mountain was our last major stop before the city. This was a pretty chilly place in a unique forest where essentially French colonists decided to plant various things from the other side of the equator “to see how they grew here” so the forest is so bizarre with strange evolved forms of pine trees and vines and all sorts of crazy stuff. It actually very much reminded me of the movie Avatar, if all the plants were glowing and there was a huge tree in which all the people lived. It was there that we found and held the smallest chameleon species on the mainland of Madagascar!! The second smallest in the world! They were almost too small to be real. They moved like little stick figure dinosaurs across your finger. That was really just amazing to see. I wish I could have slipped one in my pocket and safely carried it home. We also so the coolest tree gecko which basically becomes part of the tree and is INCREDIBLY camouflaged. It was pretty amazing.

The city of Diego-Suarez is very touristy! When we got there, it was Sunday, and apparently on Sundays the entire city just SHUTS DOWN. It was really creepy to see a huge city with NO ONE around. I felt like we were going to be attacked by zombies. The next day we went out very early and took small boats out to this island beach in the Emerald Sea. The water was the most beautiful teal blue color, absolutely crystal clear. The sun was out and there were no gray clouds in the sky. It was hot enough to swim but not too hot to run around. Literally the perfect day. We spent a little time snorkeling, when I stalked this one parrot fish for half an hour until I swallowed a bunch of sea water and got sick. But once we got to shore, I was fine. We were called for lunch where we were served coconut rum punch, French fries, salad, etc. Then we see the other boat bring in this GIGANTIC fish from the ocean and within 25 minutes, it was on our plate. Perfectly spicy… followed by grilled chocolate bananas for dessert. Easily the best meal in this country. The rest of the day was spent playing in the gorgeous water and laying in the sun on the soft sand then sailing back to the mainland in the afternoon. It was a wonderful way to say goodbye to the Indian Ocean. 

In the city we found way too many places to get good snacks, pastries, and icecream! But we were only there for a short time. Things were also pretty expensive in most places since it was a much more “vazah” inhabited area. So we didn’t go too crazy before leaving. But our time there still felt much too short. We flew back to Tana and got last minute shopping done. One person lost a bag along the way which was very stressful. Everyone is preparing to leave or has already left now.

Allie, Maddie, and myself are on the same flight from Tana to Paris on the day that was supposed to be my birthday but as it turns out after many hours of investigation that everything is delayed 24 hours. And so, my 21^st birthday will not in fact be 32 hours long, just a normal 24 hours, spent entirely in Tana. It could be worse, I suppose. One extra day in this city isn’t too bad. Just another excuse for me to eat too much icecream and pastries and gain a few more pounds before coming home. :)

Quatorzième Semaine

Well I finished my ISP, but still have a presentation on it next week. Now that almost everyone is back in town from their ISPs and I've been staying in the Hotel Mahavoky in the center of town with some of my friends, life has been great!! We all share stories with eachother and walk together and get our own meals. It's been great. I really enjoy not having to worry about leaving Kaleta before it gets dark becaues my hotel is right next to it! And having hot running water for showers has been AMAZING. I have taken my last bucket shower.

Since I've basically finished all my work, I've been able to spend more time on the beach when the weather's nice and goof around on the internet and get way too excited about home. I can also take naps and read more, although I have really run out of good books to read over here.

So that's basically it for now. Next week after presentations and final language evaluations we leave for the North to finish up our semester!! More about that as it comes. Until then, I will be enjoying my vacation. ;)

Treizième Semaine

Okay, woah, Blogger just changed everything on me!

So I know you all have just been desperately awaiting this week's blog... I wasn't going to post because I didn't think there was anything interesting enough. But then I started thinking about it and, on the contrary, alot has happened this week!

So let me start by telling the story of how I was stalked and proposed to. This guy who is friends with my host aunt, Nadia's friends has been trying to hang out with me since we went for a night of karaoke at this house. My aunt told him he doesn't have a chance (and I was never very nice to him...) but he stated that he "just wanted to be friends". Which is interesting because he would randomly show up at the internet cafe when I was there, pose with me in pictures I was trying to take with the kids as if we were a little family, show up at my homestay house while I was in my pajamas and say "I have a car outside, come to my house.", pay for my taxi home and tell me he wants to "present me to his family." Does this sound like things friends do? So anyway, one day I gave him my USB to take those pictures, so in order to get it back as soon as possible, I agreed to his offer of coming over that night for more karaoke (forcing Nadia to come with me). I successfully retrieved the USB and, still being affected by my throat cold, started reacting to the smoke and asked to leave. Nadia stayed behind to sing more songs and Christian came in the car with me to go home. He starts talking to me about how he wants to have a relationship with me and I was very rude and direct about the fact that it was ridiculous that he was even talking about that and I told him to leave me alone. Two days later, he sends me a text message that says “I want that u knoe: I love u and we will married if u accept. Please answer Caren.” First of all, if you have to beg someone to answer a text message, do you honestly think you have a chance in marrying them? I think there’s something wrong with this guy… Anyway, I think I have made it fairly clear that I want nothing to do with him but it’s been an interesting experience that I will certainly never forget.

Aside from that, Nadia left to go find work on Thursday. She’s going to Tulear and then to Tana. It was a solemn day when she left and I cried again when I hugged her goodbye, just like the grandmother. But on a positive note, I moved into her bedroom so now I have a door that closes, my own big bed, a TV with some bootleg DVDs and a small closet to put my stuff in! I am only in here for 5 days though because I will be moving to the cheap hotel with some other SIT kids finishing ISP on Tuesday. But it’s still nice to have a little bit of privacy while I’m still here.

In addition to that, I just keep getting spoiled, and my ISP Advisor left town the other day so he left his Fort Dauphin internet connection with me! So temporarily, I can have internet in my homestay and take it to the school to work and the Mahavoky hotel, and never have to pay those snooty Kaleta people again! (Although I probably will a couple times just because it’s delicious.) So I am currently posting this blog from my homestay suite. ;) In a couple days I will have hot running water at the hotel and you can officially start calling this more of a vacation than study time.
Especially since I am really almost finished with my project!! I’m still working out little details and I sent it to my advisor to look over when he gets a chance so hopefully I can finish it and have it fully edited before the weekend. As of now, it is over 30 pages long. I already mentioned that it is about local production and the economic market of wood charcoal in the town of Fort Dauphin. I may have started out too broadly so now it’s just been difficult to choose what bits of information are worth talking about or not so I can try to make it as economics based as possible for URI credit. I feel like I should have a ceremonial burning of one of the printed copies, using wood charcoal as my fuel source. Wouldn’t that be ironic? I obviously won’t do that though.

So basically, this upcoming week is very exciting because all my SIT friends are returning from their various ISP sites (villages, rainforests, distant cities and islands, etc.) and sharing stories and making plans to take what we can from Fort Dauphin before we leave forever! This is our last real academic responsibility and it is almost over! Whenever Allie and I talk about going home, we get all jumpy and nervous because it’s coming SO SOON. More about the end in later posts though… I can’t get too ahead of myself.

Something Fun

Because these blogs have been so boring during these four weeks of Independent Study. I thought I might make another attempt at uploading a picture. Here is a map of the country and everywhere we have/will have visited over the entire course of the trip! I apologize if it is too small to read.

Note that we are based in Fort Dauphin, our village stay was in Faux Cap, the capital is Antananarivo (Tana) and the other large cities are Tulear, Diego and Fianarantsoa. Almost everywhere else is a National Park or Protected Area where we camped and saw beautiful creatures. It's been quite a long "field trip" these four months.

Douzième Semaine

Well, what can I say about this week? It’s been a generally sad and stressful week to be honest. Nadia had to quit being my translator because it was too much walking and she’s also sensitive to the sun. So she recruited our cousin, Alex, who is not as easy to communicate with but he did do good work. I only needed one more day of interviewing anyway. In general my project is coming along. Research is basically done and now I will be writing and analyzing data. It’s not exactly what I envisioned but it is an interesting paper nonetheless.
My family is slowly disintegrating. Last time I was here there were 9 of us. Then my other aunt, Omega, went to Tulear just before we did. When I came back, the two kids that take care of our house were back in their village for the month because of Easter Break. Now this week, the grandmother has left to visit Omega in Tulear, and Nadia is leaving this week to find work in Antananarivo. So now it will be just my mother, my two little siblings, and me. When the grandmother left this week, it was a very emotional moment. I hugged her tight and started crying because I realized I would never see her again and she was so sweet and grandmothery. We were really beginning to have a connection I think.
Right at the end of my researching, I got hit with the sick. That familiar April cold that starts with the sandy golfball in the throat and makes me physically fatigued. Good thing it was after I had all my data collected so I have been able to sit in my pajamas all day with my coughdrops and tissues and write up my paper. I’ve also been watching many random movies dubbed in French like Just Go With It, Toy Story 3, and Passion of the Christ. That’s right, I watched Passion of the Christ. I can’t explain how it happened… I’ve been very bored sometimes.
Needless to say, I’m getting pretty ready to leave. As much as I have come to know my family, their life is becoming complicated and many of them are leaving before I am, so I feel like it is about time for me to go home. Plus, it’s just not as fun here without friends. Even the friends I have made through the program are still off doing their research in other parts of the country. I’m really excited for that last week when everyone starts coming back. Well, I hope you enjoyed this cheerful update! Haha I guess the fact that they’re getting more boring means it’s closer to the end, right?

Onzième Semaine

Well, I am safe and sound back in Fort Dauphin working on my Independent Study Project. It has not been very nice weather this week, unfortunately, but I guess that just gives me more reason to focus on my project rather than laying on the beach. (Even though the rain is really irritating me and making me more depressed) I have been doing a lot actually! Let me tell you a little bit about my project:
I am conducting research around the city to assess trends and variations within the charcoal market. Because almost everything in Madagascar is sold in the informal sector, “market prices” are interesting to observe. In the charcoal market, there is very much a ladder style production. The people who make it out in the forest will sell it to people who take it into town (sometimes bike boys with just a couple sacks or sometimes large vendors by the truck). These people will either sell it in town to consumers or they will sell it to a smaller vendor who will either sell it themselves or sell it to an even smaller vendor… etcetera. As the charcoal moves through town, the prices change based on transport. There are different types of wood that become charcoal as well and some are preferred over others which affects prices. So essentially my project is to go around town every day and interview different charcoal vendors about what type of wood they are selling, where it is coming from, how much they pay for it, how much they sell it for, and the quantity that they sell it on a daily basis. In the end I will use this information to compare the trends across all variables to determine what has the biggest impact on price. With this I should hopefully be able to narrow some thoughts about incentives towards conservation of charcoal wood and/or sustainable options.
That is probably the broadest and most laymen’s terms I can use but the important thing is that the next few weeks will be mainly composed of myself and my host aunt (who is also my project translator) walking around town all day talking to charcoal vendors, and plugging in/analyzing data. I’m very excited that Nadia is my translator because it is so much more fun having someone I know and can easily communicate with around me all the time. It’s also great for my studies because I know I will get more accurate information if I’m translating from English since my French is not the best. Overall, it means that she is staying in town so I will always have a friend during ISP! Also, my advisor is a young Irish guy who lives in town and I run into him all the time which is great because he can always give me feedback and advice throughout the project and I don’t have to worry about trying to contact him. Basically, everything is going great so far with that.
The only problem right now is that Nadia and I are sort of in charge of taking care of the house and the kids. This week, my hostmother and hostgrandma were fasting from Wednesday at lunch to Saturday at dinner for Easter. It was a little scary but it turned out not as bad as I thought. They have been at church basically all the time and have much less energy obviously so it has been Nadia’s responsibility (and mine) to buy food and bring it home to cook for the kids and clean up the house while still trying to be out all day doing my work for ISP. It’s a struggle but we made it work. Things will only get easier from here. In a way it’s making me feel more like this is home because I have real responsibilities, plus it is making time go by so fast because I’m always so busy!
I went to church with the family on Saturday to observe Easter. This launched an awkward dinner discussion about religion and my hostmother wanting to baptize me… I will just say it was awkward but I made my way out of it. I guess I didn’t realize that staying here longer would mean being more involved in family activity (which for the most part is CHURCH). I’m doing my best to respect it but as an American, it’s sometimes stressful.
Also, the people here are even crazier than before!! I don’t know why but nowadays when I walk down the street alone it’s like I’m the freak vazah that EVERYONE has to talk about loudly, laugh at, point at, approach and follow. People will start walking next to me and talking and then laughing because I don’t understand them. Sometimes I will walk by someone and they will just touch my arm, as if to check that I’m real. There were 22 of us around here for four weeks! How are the people not used to us? It’s not like I’m the only one in town either… I guess just the only one in my homestay area. It’s really getting to me and I don’t know how much more I can take before I freak out on someone (which could potentially affect my research because people might stop talking to me so casually during interviews). I guess I will just do my best and write up my paper for the next couple weeks. Hopefully the weather will get nicer and I can be at the beach. At least I can be thankful that I have not been sick at all or hurt and I have food and a roof to shield me from the rain.

Dixième Semaine

We were just about getting to know a portion of Fianarantsoa and discovering delicious pastry shops, internet cafes, and fabric stores when it was time to leave. I realized how to describe the city in comparison to the others… it was much more Asian. I hadn’t realized that not only were we staying in a hotel run by a Chinese restaurant, but almost every other store on the streets had some kind of Chinese name or theme. I’m not sure why that is, but that’s definitely why it was different than the other cities. It felt more like we were in some part of Asia than Africa.
Ranomafana is a controversial National Park recently founded and managed by Stony Brook University in the US! It is a humid rainforest and its name means “hot water” in Malagasy. After we set up camp, we had a tour of the big center where the Stony Brook researchers work and it was a little ridiculous… I felt like I was in some strange part of Florida again. I found myself confused as to why the woman was speaking English with an American accent. I’ve been here too long… After that we got to visit the hot spring. It was cold and very rainy out but we were still excited… we all awkwardly changed into our suits on the bus and ran across a rickety bridge over a fast-flowing river and arrived at this pool. A POOL. As in an in-ground, cement, deep-end shallow-end swimming pool. We were very confused and a little disappointed but then it was explained to us that the water still came from, and was naturally heated, by a real hot spring and it was just safer for the ecosystem to send some water to a public pool rather than have people crowding the natural hot spring area. It was actually really warm, like a bath, and completely opposite from the cold wet outside.
Our campsite was well equipped for rain, of course, and had little elevated stations with roofs to set up tents. So awesome because it was almost always raining. I guess that’s why they call it a rainforest. The first morning we spent all morning until lunch time walking through the forest and seeing all kinds of awesome plants and bugs and red-bellied lemurs!! The best part was the leeches. Terrestrial leeches are tiny inch-worm looking things and they were ATTACKING us hard core. A couple people left trails of blood on the paths. I found only one that actually broke skin under my Teva strap but then I caught about 25 inching around my feet searching for the right place to steal my blood. They were so tiny and slippery and clung to you so it was really really annoying to try to pluck them off. By the end I was about ready to just book it out of there.
Sunday we drove to Tana. And that was about it. 12 hours on the Tata bus. It was a beautiful drive, though. It’s much colder up in the highlands than down in Fort Dauphin and near the coasts. I also discovered on our picnic lunch that my new favorite jam is Papaya Ginger. Best thing I’ve eaten in this country. It’s so great to be in a city for more than two days with showers and internet and just being in one place to sort out our lives. Tana is so big and busy and bizarre!! On the way in we got stuck in traffic. TRAFFIC!! And there are bright lights and statues and courtyards and big buildings. There are so many expensive jewelry stores and hotels and fancy cars. It does not feel like we’re in one of the poorest countries in the world. Our first day we went on a quick walk around by a professor from the University who explained how the municipal water and trash systems work and why the city is built the way it is, some historical buildings, etc. It actually looks like a more run-down San Francisco with all the steep hills and randomly packed in buildings.
That day was also Sidonie’s birthday. She’s originally from Paris and her favorite food is Foie Gras so they got some of that for us for lunch! It was my first time trying it and although I know that the whole concept of it is horrible for the animals, it actually tasted really delicious. That afternoon a few of us went around on our own a little and found this ridiculously fancy hotel called Hotel Colbert with an outrageous bakery attached with pastries, ice cream and chocolates… we’re in trouble. We also stopped in this book store and I found a treasure: Le Petit Prince in Malagasy with the French translation on the sides of each page. For those of you who aren’t familiar with this book, it’s a very famous French book about a tiny little prince who travels to different planets. It’s really cute and a wonderful book and a symbol of French culture. So finding it in Malagasy (when there aren’t very many books in Malagasy to begin with) was a huge find. I think it was the only copy and I had to purchase it without blinking. I was actually crying when I found it. Such a treasure. That night we went to a Korean restaurant for Sidonie’s birthday and had delicious spicy asian soups and a chocolate mousse black forest cake from that bakery at Hotel Colbert. I had two very happy food babies that night.
On Wednesday, we actually had a couple field trips around the city. In the morning we went to a medicinal plants research center and were toured around the laboratories and the gardens and had a chance to purchase remedies from the pharmacy. It was interesting to see such a high-tech scientific center in this country, although the city is a very different place. The afternoon was spent shopping in the HUGE artisan market and then visiting the orphanage, Akany Avoko. “Akany avoko” means “growing beautiful flowers” in Malagasy and it’s the name of this center because it is designed to raise orphan or mistreated young girls to help them either get on their own feet or find a better situation at home. They take in kids from infants to 17 year olds who are either without a family or have parents who cannot care for them. The boys that are there only stay there until they are 10 because it is a center for girls, but they do not separate siblings when they are young. Later, the boys go to a different center. The woman giving us a tour was a true-life success story and was raised in that same center since she was 5 years old. They gave her education and sent her to university where she learned to speak English and traveled as a volunteer around Europe, only to return to the center as the main correspondent and head of tourism at the center that raised her. It was really inspirational. We all thought we would be sad to see an orphanage but it actually cheered us all up and the kids were all so happy. Some of us got attached to individuals, especially Allie. The little girl cried when we had to leave and Allie had to put her down after 3 minutes of holding her. It was a real experience.
We have eaten so much good food here. From Korean to Chinese to Indian to Italian gelato and French pastries… we even went to a place called “Planete” that was kind of like Johnny Rockets and I had a bacon cheeseburger with fries and a coconut milkshake and American pop songs were playing on the radio. It felt just like home for a minute.
The last couple days were spent going to Andasibe National Park which is a couple hours outside of Tana. We stayed in little bungalows and were awakened in the morning by the call of the indri lemur. It’s a very loud, high pitched howl and they all echo each other throughout the forest. On our trek, we saw a bunch of them close up and they were screaming so loud all around us but it was so cool. I also achieved one of my major goals of the trip which was to see a giraffe weevil!! They are the weirdest bugs and they are amazing. They make nests by tightly wrapping up a leaf into a roll which takes a lot of time and effort. We saw a female and females’ necks aren’t quite as long as males’ but it was still fascinating and I felt satisfied with the entire trip at that point.
We’ve basically been using the majority of this week to finish up our big Environmental Issues papers and get our acts together for ISP. It’s making me really nervous because I was without a solid ISP topic until essentially the last minute. I’ll soon be on my own for four weeks back in Fort Dauphin researching the charcoal market. It might be stressful but it will be fun and it’s basically the last thing I have to do this semester before another week of travel and beaches before HOME!

Neuvième Semaine

Leaving Tulear was bittersweet since it was so exciting and we were there for such a short time. But this entire week has been camping in three different beautiful places! First stop was Isalo. Huge gorgeous cliffs and rock faces stand in the middle of open land and hidden between them is an amazing rainforest National Park. We parked the bus and carried all of our things about an hour into the forest to our campsite. There were ringtail lemurs greeting us when we got there! After setting up camp, they took us for a scenic hike through the park that led to two natural pools that looked just like postcards. I actually think one of my postcards was a picture of one of these pools. The water was really cold but it was still fun. I spent most of my time looking at the different colorful layers of rocks in the cliffs and huge hanging roots coming down into the canyons. It was like the places Rainforest Café and the Tropical themed Disney Hotel try to mimic. We were only there for one short night, but it was probably most of our favorite spots.
The next day we went up to Anja, another large standing rock face in open land. These rocks were granite which almost made it feel like we were back in the US, besides the tropical plants and more lemurs jumping around. The night we got there, it poured buckets. There was a little roofed table where we ate dinner but the rain fell right through it and we scarfed our food, huddling over it with our rain jackets and ran to our tents way earlier than we had hoped to go to bed. The tent Anne and I were sharing was not waterproof on the bottom. Water soaked right through and soaked my sleeping bag and the clothes I was wearing so the whole night was spent cold and wet and miserable. In the morning everything dried quickly though. Our stuff was all on the bus and stayed totally dry also. While we left out our wet things in the sun, we spent the morning hiking around the rocks and climbing on/over/under them into some caves and forests. There was a tomb in one of the caves where somebody was buried behind a wall of bricks in between huge rocks and marked with a zebu skull. It was a little creepy but fascinating. When we came around at the end, there was a woman’s house where she had handmade thread and woven cloths and she showed us quickly how it was all done. I really wanted to buy one but hadn’t taken my money with me on this hike.
That day we moved on to Andringitra, stopping in a town to buy some wine and icecream and some warm clothing for the trip. That was a nice treat to prepare us for what we were not prepared for. Although we had been hiking pretty intensively every day, they were getting more and more difficult. Arriving at Andringitra that afternoon, we had to carry everything we needed for two nights (including tents and food, our bulky cold weather clothing, etc.) up the mountain for two and a half hours. When I said back in the beginning that Peak St. Louis was the hardest thing I’ve ever done… that is no longer true. But when we got to the top, it was much colder so it was easy to cool down and I was actually feeling really great. It was really really cold up there though! Everyone was walking around the campsite in multiple layers, sweatshirts with hoods and fuzzy hats, thick socks and boots. It felt just like Fall back at home. The mountaintops around us looked like scenery from a fantasy movie. The next day was the epic hike of the semester, Peak Boby (pronounced “booby” btw) which is the highest accessible peak, (second highest overall) in Madagascar. It looked exactly like we were hiking to Mordor in Lord of the Rings. It took us over three hours and it was very steep and strenuous, but luckily it wasn’t hot so personally, I found it to be easier than the last couple hikes. Once we reached the top, we were essentially in a cloud. You couldn’t really see any scenery because of it… just fog and the other nearest peaks around you. My camera batteries decided to call it quits too so don’t worry about missing out on pictures. We had a quick snack and started our descent immediately. As we are trucking back down, the thunder storm starts rolling in. We were walking down steep, slippery rock in pouring rain… it was very scary. I had one of the most memorable moments of my life and got full use out of my Timberland boots, which now look like they have been used with the purpose for which they were made. After a long, uncomfortable hike back to camp, we ate a nice big lunch and I took a long well deserved nap. That was quite a day for several reasons.
After the second night in Andringitra, we had run out of rice and toilet paper which meant it was time to move on. The hike back down with all of our stuff was almost as difficult as the hike up with such slippery packed down mud on the paths. But we made it down for another 5 hour ride in the Tata bus to Fianaratsoa. We stopped for lunch on the way and part of the meal was rumored to be Zebu tongue? It seemed just like any other meat to me… definitely not the consistency you would think to be tongue so I think someone was lying. Anyway, Fianaratsoa is a city nothing like Fort Dauphin or Tulear or even Tana. It seems more populated and less developed but so far we’ve had good Chinese food and the people are very nice. The internet place is a tiny hole in the wall that you would never find without being directed to it, but it’s basically like sitting in this man’s office while he has three computers running next to each other. It reminds me of something my dad would be running at home if he could. We’re basically just here for a couple days to get back on track with communication and do some work for our research and preparation for ISP which is coming all too soon!! After this short stay in civilization, we’ll be moving on to the humid rainforest in Ranomafana for two nights and then a whole week in the big city to really prepare for ISP right before it starts.

Huitième Semaine

Flying in a plane to Tulear was very emotionally confusing. It felt so much like we were going home! And I was sitting next to a couple strangers away from the group so it really felt like I was just getting on a plane to come home but I knew that I wasn’t so even though I was excited about the upcoming experiences, I was a little sad that I wasn’t actually on my way back home. But it was an extremely short flight and within an hour we were on the other side of the island. That day we went straight from the airport to this man’s house who studies renewable energy! He showed us several little inventions he created that use solar energy to cook food at his house and he created a system where they put their waste into a cement hole which then creates methane gas that they use in the house to cook as well! It was like being back with energy fellows on a summer field trip, except it was all in French. Then the same man traveled with us to an algae farm, where they are growing spirulina. Spirulina is a very popular algae that has many great benefits from health and diet to carbon sequestration. It was pretty cool. And we got to eat some with lunch at the farm. (Obviously dried and packaged already, not straight out of the swamp) After that we set up camp in an area right outside the city, where our director’s retirement home is located right on the coast by the mangroves. It’s a beautiful spot but it’s very confusing. I had never learned anything about mangroves before. They are basically lines of trees that grow IN the water along the beach. The tides come up and go out really really far over the course of the day so sometimes we would have nice ocean water right there and sometimes we could walk for 20 minutes and the water wouldn’t go past our knees. It’s really difficult to explain so if you need to understand it more, that’s what google is for. And you can wait for my pictures on facebook. After settling in to out campsite, we went to hike up Table Mountain with an Ombiasy (a healer who communicates with spirits and studies medicinal plants). It was a nice slow and education hike, not at all like Peak St. Louis, and pretty short. Once we reached the top, the Ombiasy needed to “talk to the powerful people” so he climbed into this hole in the ground and was speaking Malagasy while we sat around it quietly and listened respectfully. Part of the ritual is also to indulge in consumption of things while speaking with the spirits so he passed us some rum, some cookies, and a cigarette for all of us to share. Not too many of us were into the cigarette but we still paid respects with the other options. It was a little bizarre. At the end he said each of our names and something to the spirits about us… after my name we heard the word “president”. Very interesting.
Monday was a day full of lectures in a classroom in HSM at the University of Tulear, which is the oceanic study center. It was quite a long day. HOWEVER…. It was Ellen’s birthday. And for lunch, we went to this restaurant called “Le Jardin” (the garden). This place was a diamond in the rough, a tiny shack that you walk into and suddenly there is an endless maze of tropical themed rooms of tables and the walls and ceilings were completely covered in beautiful Malagasy paintings. This restaurant is run by a guy from Italy and we were served pizza, which was SO exciting for us since it was real Italian pizza with gooey cheese and sauce… but then more food came. Some lasagna.. and more… some ravioli.. and some beef… and more lasagna… and some fish… and more pizza… and eggplant parmesan with pesto. I don’t even remember what happened, I just have images of delicious food flashing in my mind. Then all of a sudden we were eating delicious cake that had a little Tenrec on it! That’s a little hedgehog creature from Madagascar. The cake obviously didn’t have a real Tenrec, but a cute one made of cake. Then they brought out icecream. Allie and I were actually crying. It was just wonderful. THEN they brought out different flavors of rum. It was just a beautiful lunch. That night I felt the need to go for a run to the water and go swimming. The water was HOT like bath water, even though it was technically the ocean (well, the Mozambique channel). Those mangroves really confuse me.
At dinner, we had the pleasure of observing gecko mating. Yup. We watched lizards doing it on the wall next to where we were having our meal. It made me very uncomfortable but it was also hilarious and many great jokes came out of it. At first we thought they were going to fight, because I guess that’s how it starts... but before you knew it, there was love. Quite a Madagascar experience.
Tuesday we stayed in the restaurant by the campsite ALL day having lectures and discussions and another delicious lunch of duck, pork, AND crab… At the end of the day, we invited the speakers from lecture as well as the restaurant owner to a party at our director’s house. After lunch, we were in need of a pick-me-up to sit through another lecture so I successfully requested more coffee for everyone. If we were going to sit and have lectures in a restaurant all day, we should be served beverages right? They roasted another lamb and goat, which I was lucky enough to NOT observe, but ate it because it was great. The locals came after dinner and danced with us for a while. It was a pretty nice, relaxing day.
Wednesday was city day!! We got up and went to our hotel, Hotel Tropical. It’s really strangely hidden behind this shell of something that resembles a parking garage, but when you walk in, there is a wall of nice rooms WITH BATHROOMS THAT HAVE RUNNING WATER!!! I took a semi-real shower for the first time in months. We had our meetings with one of our teachers about our ISP plans and then had the whole day free to explore the city. Well, actually, we were supposed to be doing research but there really wasn’t much Allie, Anne, or I could do in terms of our topics, so we got to just go out shopping and being tourists. When we were in an artisanal market, these guys running stands asked Allie to teach them how to make the string bracelets that we had on. It was a precious moment. Then they asked us to go for drinks, but we still had some shopping to do. We were walking back towards the hotel and stopped in a store where I found Kinder Bueno and some cold juice. We were walking down the street and this woman, who may have had something wrong with her, was basically attacking me and asking for my juice. I was trying to just walk away from her but she successfully just grabbed it out of my hand… I was a little shaken up but I guess it’s not a total loss. She didn’t pick-pocket me or anything. She was just really really thirsty I guess. It’s because of this that we are not allowed to go out in this city at night at all.
In Tulear, they have fewer taxis and more “pousse-pousse”. A pousse-pousse is a little seat with a canopy on big wheels that are pulled by men holding the big sticks attached to the front. It’s very strange because they are essentially ox-carts pulled by men. You feel a little bad sitting in this seat while this pour man is running and sweating, pulling your weight around town but it’s the way they choose to make money. Allie asked one if she could try to pull it and they let her lift it and pose for a picture but not really pull it on the street. It was still pretty funny to them, we all had a good laugh. Wednesday was our language professor, N’aina’s birthday. He’s definitely one of the coolest, he’s really animated and fun so it was a good birthday. He chose a restaurant right next to our hotel and we had ANOTHER 25 course Italian meal for dinner followed by more cake!! Oh goodness. I’m going to come home fatter than I had originally thought.
Thursday we left the city and went into PK32 which is a new protected forest area and I got loads of information for my paper and observed some pretty interesting discussions. A giant hissing cockroach was on my shoulder, too. No big deal. We stayed at this little touristy bungalow place near the beach and it was adorable. We split up into little bungalows that had pretty canopy beds and a bathroom with running water. That night we had a dance party and it was so island except with our teachers! Good times.
Friday was SNORKLING DAY!! We went snorkeling in the coral reef called “Rose Garden” off the coast of an area north of Tulear. I saw so many fish like Finding Nemo but they weren’t in an aquarium, they were in their natural habitat! My favorite were definitely the Parrot fish. They were the biggest and most brightly colored and they pecked at the coral with their beaks and flapped their fins to swim like little birds. The coral wasn’t brightly colored, though. It was still extremely healthy, but healthy coral of that type is meant to be brown. But it just made it easier to see the fish. After snorkeling and eating lunch with the Reef Doctor, we had a tour of mangroves and came back to Hotel Tropical in Tulear. We’re here for such a short time but at least we can do a couple things before leaving. Tomorrow we head out for some more camping on our way to Fianaratsoa which is the next place I should hopefully have internet!!

Septième Semaine

So this week is a little crazy. It’s our last week in Fort Dauphin, officially, and at the same time we are working hard to get our stuff together for one major paper as well as plan our Independent Study Projects (ISP) which will take place during all of April, once we get back from a lengthy traveling session. We are given more free time than usual to do so, mostly to get interviews and writing done for our big paper.
On Monday, we had a long day with debriefing of the village stay as well as briefing for the week and month ahead. On my way home, after stopping at the post office and the little store to buy some jam, I was walking on my street behind three men in gray and red uniforms. The emblem on their arms said “Omega” which my homestay aunt, Omega, explained to me is the security for QMM. I thought “Hmm, I feel pretty safe walking behind these guys”. One of them turned to me and asked “Ca va?” so I was feeling even better about the situation until out of nowhere he just blatantly asks me for my phone number. (Keep in mind everything is in French) So I laughed and said “No, I don’t think that’s necessary.” And he asked “why not?” so I replied “because I do not know you…” and he went on to say something about how I would know him if he had my number and we could talk. This guy was probably in his early 30s and I was not looking cute with my huge backpack and frumpy clothes. So it was pretty sketchy. I just kept saying “Non, merci” until he said okay and backed off. Oh, the troubles of being a vazaha in paradise.
Also, everyone in my neighborhood now knows my name. Since I am the only vazaha within the three blocks, I guess word spread from the children in my family and one day instead of “bonjour vazah!”, I was getting called “Caren!!” by all the children. It was a little bizarre. I feel slightly like a celebrity though. I wonder if they will still remember when I come back in April.
Tuesday was our “free” day to work on our Environmental Issue study and, for me, get some things together for ISP since I plan to come back to Fort Dauphin. I guess I should give some background on my ideas for the project(s) to clarify how I’m spending my time: the way the people cook here is on coal fires, and the charcoal is made from wood (certain types) and is one of three causes of deforestation in the country. For my upcoming paper on “environmental issues in Madagascar” I am researching the use of charcoal and its impact on the local forests in the three areas we are seeing (the village in Faux Cap, Fort Dauphin, and Toliar) In the Fort Dauphin area, there is a huge mining project going on for titanium dioxide run by Qit Madagascar Minerals (QMM) and their project, while it involves completely wiping clean three of the local forests, includes restoration of the forests as well as cooperation with the needs of local people. Part of this idea is to include in the restoration a more sustainable, fast-growing crop of charcoal-able tree species, like Eucalyptus. This isn’t preferred by the local people because those types of wood are not the best for charcoal, but it is a compromise. For my ISP, I plan to look at what impact QMM currently has on the local charcoal industry in Fort Dauphin (having bought out the forests) and the future of the charcoal industry because of it. I’d like to research what incentives would be most effective in increasing demand of sustainable charcoal sources as opposed to those that are currently preferred and not sustainable, that Fort Dauphin would have to get from other places.
So Tuesday was a crazy day for me. I had a meeting with our professor at 9 to briefly talk about my ISP so I walked the hour there to do that and it ended up just being a kick in the butt to get stuff done this week because we won’t be coming back until ISP! He gave me two contacts that I attempted to call but had no luck so I tanned on the beach for about an hour and then decided to head off and do some work. I emailed both contacts instead of calling. One of them only speaks French. I’m pretty used to contacting professionals from my Energy Fellows job but it was pretty exciting to do it in different languages! Also, in Madagascar, there are less time constraints. So it’s possible (and easier) to just show up somewhere to talk to someone than to try to schedule an appointment. So after I sent off those emails, I went to the local community center to talk to someone we had previously met who works with QMM named Philo. He speaks English and he invited me to go with him to Mandena, the current mining site, to meet a man who focuses on environmental issues at QMM. After lunch with my homestay family and interviewing my French speaking aunt about their use and views on charcoal, I went on a little trip with him there and had a good conversation with the other guy, who then got me in touch with someone who works with the Forest Ministry here and manages a charcoal plan (or local energy in general). I met him back at the community center and by the time he finished going on in French about the whole charcoal system in Fort Dauphin, it was already 6:00! But I was pretty proud of all my accomplishments that day. I got a ton of information and met a lot of important contacts for my ISP. Also, the man I was with most of the day who works for QMM told me that they have the Rhode Island Red here! They pronounce the “s” so now I know if someone asks me where I’m from and I say “Rhode Izland”, they will recognize it!
Wednesday we had a nice short school day and Becca and I went to the beach afterwards. Obviously we were eventually harassed by some local boys because that’s just what happens. I was presented with a live starfish and this boy (who must have been like 16) gives me a puppy dog look and says “Caren. I love you.” I literally just laughed. I couldn’t help it. I actually laughed in his face. Then proceeded to get up and leave. On the way out of there, another rasta guy started walking next to me and trying to talk but I was not in the mood. Finally I was walking alone and a car pulls up next to me and the guy’s hanging out the window asking me if I need a ride in Malagasy. In just one walk home after that I got two kissy noises, a whistle, and at least three “hello baby” or “belle vazah, vovo?” all from different men/boys. I don’t know if there was something in the water that day or if I was just not informed that it’s mating season, but I was a little agitated by the time I decided to grab a cap for the rest of my way home. I didn’t even look good that day!
Thursday was great because I had realized that I didn’t really have more work to do in Fort Dauphin for my paper and my French groups didn’t have to go into school because our teachers weren’t there to have one-on-one assessments. So we really were just invited to school for our free lunch and that’s it. Obviously I decided to spend the day at the beach. I woke up later than usual and had a nice slow breakfast while the whole household was bustling around getting my 20 year old aunt, Omega, ready to head to Tulear for school. It was just like watching any American student on their day of returning back to school; chaos and lots of suitcases. I said goodbye to her but I will likely be able to meet up with her when our group heads there next week! I was at the beach from about 9:30 to 12:30 and this guy started talking to me and Ally and I told him Austin was my fiancé and showed him the picture of him so he would lay off a little. He still didn’t leave but it may have prevented an uncomfortable situation. A little later, more of us SIT girls were there and another creepy Malagasy guy and a 14 year old kid joined in. They were just sitting around us being awkward as usual and then the 14 year old just stroked Larissa’s leg while she was laying out! She completely flipped out on them Jersey style and it was fantastic. We finally got them to leave shortly after that because it was obvious we were all pissed off. That day was also ironically “women’s appreciation day”. There was a big celebration in town with everyone selling street food in front of town hall and all women had the day off of work. It was pretty cool aside from the fact that it could be the reason for the men being all crazy the past couple days. I hope it went better in the US. I spent the afternoon at Kaleta doing some research from my readings and my ipod for my paper. I had lent my computer to my homestay aunt, Nadia, because she recently lost her job and needed to use the internet to look for another one and I technically didn’t need it. I think my ipod might actually have a better internet connection than my laptop, actually.
Friday was another slow and simple day. I took a bunch of stuff to put in storage at school that I won’t need for our voyages in the next three weeks before ISP. It’s really convenient that I’m going to be in Fort Dauphin for ISP. We had our two language assessments (basically, our language courses are over) which was just a five minute one-on-one conversation with a teacher in Malagasy and then in French. They were the most casual finals we’ve ever had. We had a half day so basically 2/3 of our group went to that French restaurant with the delicious pizza and followed it with some sweet snacks and internet time, of course. In a convenience store at the gas station nearby, I found the most delicious snack in the country. It’s not from Madagascar because the package is mostly in Portugese. The company is based in Brazil. They’re called TEENS and they are tiny chocolate cereal type squares that are filled with a little coconut. DAMN. I gotta eat the whole bag once I open them. They would be an absolutely amazing cereal, if cold regular milk was a thing here. Sorry, folks, but there’s gonna be no room in my suitcase for souvenirs. I’ll be filling it entirely with these snacks and they are ALL FOR ME. I’m actually going to research how to get them in the US. That’s closer to Brazil than here so it must be possible, right?
http://www.marilanteens.com.br/ - I’m still trying to put them down long enough to type this.
So today, Saturday, is Kaitlin Luciano’s birthday. My beautiful and wonderful roommate who is studying abroad in Italy right now, but is lucky enough to have spring break AND a visit from her mother there for her 21st birthday. I don’t know how we are doing this without each other. If we were at home, we would be stressfully planning a big birthday event where she would probably cry but everyone would be getting drunk and having a great time and it would feel like the semester was ending soon. This year, it’s not even the half way point and we are so far apart from each other and from the rest of our friends at URI. It makes the experience that much more exciting, I suppose, but it hits me hard today when I think about what it would be like under normal circumstances. Anyway, shout out to her: Happy Birthday!! Have the most fun ever because you are in FREAKING ITALY and you better not cry this year!! Also, I’m sorry for posting online that you always cry on your birthday. <3
Now it is time to officially depart from Fort Dauphin, some of us for the semester, and head out for a three week long adventure as we make our way west and then north back to Tana. We will be starting in Tulear and then progressively making our way up to Tana through various protected areas, forests, and villages. I will still have internet at least once a week so don’t worry about staying up to date. This might be one of the most interesting parts of the trip after the village stay and the initial week in the country. After that, it will be April already!! Which not only means it’s time for ISP and I will be stationary for a whole four weeks, working completely independently on my one area of study interest, but it also means that the program is almost over!! Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself but according to my calendar that I study all too closely, there are just two more hurdles before homecoming.

Sejours aux Villages – Sixième Semaine

Well, the day before we left and the day I last updated the blog, Molly and Ellen and I went out to lunch at this little restaurant that I pass by every day to and from school, right in the center of town. Big news: found out they serve delicious, fresh gourmet PIZZA!! It’s run by a white French couple who are super nice and along with many other dishes, they have a whole list of pizzas that they make fresh by hand. All of the toppings are delicious and piled on there, the crust is thin and perfect, and they use real cheese… It’s just wonderful. It’s almost like being in Italy with Kaitlin, except probably not nearly as good. But it’s as close as I will get over here! It’s definitely something you have to share though so I hope at least one other SIT student sticks around Fort Dauphin during Independent Study Project (ISP) time in April so I will have someone to enjoy it with. Otherwise, it will be just me buying a $7.50 pizza and gorging myself, which I’m not entirely opposed to.
Also, as I was walking down the street to my homestay that day, I was being friendly and saying “Salama” to everyone I made eye contact with, as usual. So I see an old lady and say “Salama” only to be immediately accosted in Malgache to some degree of “VAZAH! GIVE ME MONEY!” It was pretty strange but I was able to just keep walking without a problem…

Anyway, this blog is about the village stay. This was a major turning point in the program and definitely an irreplaceable experience for us. I left with flea bites, dreadlocks, several scratches/cactus splinters and a broken water bottle but it was probably my favorite part of this entire trip. We were paired up in teams of two based on our research interests for our final environmental issues paper, and then teamed up with one or two CEL students.
For background, I have previously mentioned the “local ecology students” who are and will from now on be referred to as the CEL students. (Centre Écologique de Libanona) They are students who live in Fort Dauphin and study ecology and the environment at the same place where we SIT students have class. So they often join us on certain trips/classes including this village stay. It was great because they of course speak Malagasy and could translate through French between us and the villagers (who did not speak French). Molly and I were paired up with Hantra (a really nice, down to earth girl who shared our challenges with village life) and Fidele. (a very extraverted bro guy who is also Tandroy – the tribe of our villages) We were the best team, clearly.
It took an entire day by bus to get to Faux Cap, the beach where the trip was based out of. On the way there we stopped for a beverage at this snack shack and they had aloe juice. It was also strawberry flavored and there were tiny chunks of aloe in it. It was pretty interesting but I liked it a lot. I hope we can find more of it somewhere. We also got these “chocolate cookies” which were so not chocolate. Ally described the taste as “the smell of a gym that has a pool” which was completely accurate. During a portion of the ride, the CEL students in the back started passing up little mixes of rum and pineapple fanta and the bus kept bumping around like crazy so it was an experience to say the least. They also started passing up various pieces of poultry… where that came from, we have no idea.
The first night we arrived in Faux Cap, we all set up camp around the hotel where our teachers were staying, right on the beach. Let me tell you that camping on the beach is not as nice as it sounds. The wind was UNREAL and putting up a tent was nearly impossible. Sleeping in said tent was even more impossible. I honestly thought we were going to be blown away all night, it was pretty terrible. The next day we presented ourselves by attending the village market that is only held on Mondays. We basically had to push the bus the entire way there because it kept getting stuck in the sand. We walked around in our teams and bought straw hats and coconuts and I was searching for a lamba but didn’t have much luck that day. On the bus back to the beach, Eeny Meeny Miney Moe Lover by Justin Beiber was playing and Fidele asked me what it meant. I had to explain eeny meeny miney moe in French! That afternoon we were picked up by our village fathers and rode with all our stuff in the back of our director’s truck to our individual villages. We had accidently left our tent in the truck but it quickly came back to get it to us before the sun set. When we arrived in the village, we were brought to a matt under a tree and given some watermelon. The watermelon there is green the whole way through, and the seeds are bright orange! It tastes much blander than American watermelon but it was still very watery and yummy. They also gave us cactus fruits, which we call prickly pears, which were really delicious. They all sat around us and watched us eat which was a little awkward. We quickly got used to them finding everything we do just fascinating. The whole week we couldn’t read or write in our journals or anything without the whole village hanging over our shoulders.
Anyway, I was sitting on a mat and baby chickens were walking around so I held my hand out to one of them in hopes it would come over and BAM! One of the guys just grabbed it out of nowhere and handed it to me! It was so cute to hold but chickens here are still not as cute as the chickens we’re used to. They look slightly more like dinosaurs. Later, Fidele was teaching the villagers French and what little English he knows by asking them all how to say “hair” or “eyes” or “shirt”. It was pretty entertaining. I was also surprised at how much English they knew. They must be learning some in school while they learn French. But in a village, what do they really do with that besides talk to us once a year? We were sitting outside waiting for dinner and talking to the village elder (who must have been in his early fifties) and spoke pretty decent French. He says to me: “le président aux Etats Unis… c’est Barack Obama! Oui. Il est noir!” I don’t know how but they know the president in America is black! Haha He was very excited about that.
Every morning they gave us some water to wash our faces and then we had the best coffee EVER before breakfast. The village mother made the best coffee, roasting it fresh every day and pounding it in a hallowed tree trunk. It was amazing. The first morning, breakfast was rice (obviously) but with eggs that she had spiced with a little curry! That is a recipe I will be taking back home with me. Every other day was really just rice though. The first day we went out into the fields with our parents and learned about how they cultivate and why they do certain things during certain times of year. They grow watermelon, corn, beans, etc. all mixed together in the same plots. They do this just because it saves space but they don’t realize that it’s actually better for the plants to grow that way. We picked some watermelon and ate it while we worked picking corn and learning about the different medicinal values of certain plants and finding roots that they use for soap, etcetera. It was really interesting and it got basically all of our studying done within the first few hours. We found a little chameleon crawling around in the plants and they said I could just pick it up… so I did! I finally held a chameleon! He was really tiny and really scared so I felt bad but we put him back soon enough. It was really exciting.
Every night we danced before sunset for over an hour. They were preparing us for the party that was planned for the end of the week and had turned it into a competition. Each village had to be the best, so they were basically training us to do it perfectly. It was hilarious because they would teach us something and then change it on us and argue amongst each other in Malagasy while we stood there looking confused. They’d often tell us “Mahay!” “Good job!” when we danced well or they would repeatedly tell us we were stomping wrong and just grab at us to show us the proper way. Definitely an experience. The last couple days, this all happened in the rain. I have lost my vulnerability to rain throughout this trip. Also, part of one of the songs/dances was for us to go up front and do an “American dance” so we decided to do the cotton eye joe. It worked out pretty perfectly. We wanted to teach it to them but they were really only interested in us learning their dances.
The second day we decided to go to the beach, which was about a mile and a half walk from our village. We arrived at this area with a bunch of wells where they get some drinkable water and also share it with the zebu in little trenches that they made on the beach. It was fascinating. Along the way to where the good swimming water was, I found so many shells and pieces of coral and sponge, and best of all: pieces of egg shells from the extinct elephant bird! They were everywhere. I know that’s what they are because our director showed them to me the first day. I was imagining a million giant ostrich like birds walking around the beach hundreds of years ago, laying giant eggs. We met up with two of the other teams there and tanned and swam until lunch time. It was a pretty great day.
The next day, it was very rainy so we all stayed cooped up in the little hut most of the day, napping or reading or talking. Our host father was a fisherman but he said the weather has not been good for catching any fish which I was really disappointed about. I insisted that we try to go out anyway. I really wanted to go out on the pirogue (their tiny wooden canoe-like fishing boat) so he finally agreed to take us. We were making the long walk to the beach again when a zebu driven “charette” came by and we were told to hop in! It was really scary and bumpy and painful but so much fun! The zebu would run so fast over the bumpy sand and then they’d swerve around cactuses and make us hold on for dear live. When we got to the beach, the pirogue wasn’t much different!! Five of us in this tiny wooden canoe thing in the ocean with huge waves and wind!! I sat right up at the front too. It was so exciting. The boat just rode right over the waves, even when you thought they would just knock it over. It was like an amusement park ride except it was actually the real thing. We were only out for about five minutes because “the weather was too bad” but I was so glad we got to do that.
On the walk back that day we found a tortoise just chillin around the farms. My camera had died so I have no pictures of either that, or the pirogue ride, but Molly was able to pick up the tortoise and he was so cute! I’m glad it’s fady (taboo) for the Tandroy culture to eat tortoise.
The villagers were all talking about wanting to go to the states and how much they will miss us when we leave. One guy even offered Molly a zebu in exchange for taking her place back to the US. We really grew to love our village even though they were a little pushy and invasive sometimes.
Throughout the trip we would run into some of the other groups. It was nice to speak a little English and share everyone’s different experiences in the different villages. Listening to some of the others it seems like we were having one of the better times. One girl had a broken toe, which made it very difficult to dance and the villagers did not seem to understand that so it was a little stressful. Others just didn’t really do anything most of the time. So I’m glad we had the opportunities and the people that we did.
The last day, after lunch, was the “grande fête”! They woke me up from a nap, threw some earrings in my ears (which was really sweet and unexpected. Although one of them broke the next day) and made us start dancing and charging our way to the hotel area where our teachers were. They had done our hair earlier in the day, real Tandroy style in braided buns all over our head. It was terribly ugly on us but really funny. We made our way, all excited with the whole village behind us, to the party where all the other villages were with their student teams. All the girls had their hair done. We each danced individually with our villages in front of the crowd and then we spend the rest of the afternoon dancing together, both Tandroy style and hip hop style. Before dinner, it was time to present our villages with a sheep and say our goodbyes. I was really sad to say goodbye, especially to our mother who, despite the language barriers, I had bonded with a lot the past week. Then we set up our tents, had dinner, and danced a little more with our teachers and the CEL students. Not too late, of course because we were all exhausted.
The ride home was another full day and involved more pushing of the bus and random Malagasy music but it was really not that bad. We had many hilarious conversations and even though we were all filthy, we were just having a blast on the bumpy uncomfortable bus, bonding and falling asleep on each other. Overall it was a pretty great week. I had to take two buckets to wash myself when I got home but it was all worth it.